


Snakes and Soulmates

by LemonyZest



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Kate is perfect, Richie just wants to ride of into the sunset, Romantic Soulmates, Seth hates everything and everyone, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Why can't everyone be happy, dammit, especially himself, no beta we die like men, preferably with Seth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2020-10-21 20:40:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonyZest/pseuds/LemonyZest
Summary: Kate Fuller is born with the first words her soulmate will ever say to her on her wrist.Seth Gecko gets the first words his soulmate will say to him printed over his heart when he is fifteen.Neither of them expected each other to say those words.





	1. Before We Met

Seth was not born with his words. It was a normal thing. It just meant his soulmate would be younger than him. No one worried about it at all. 

Less than a year later his little brother Richie was born with the words "It’s alright Richard" scribbled across his palm. 

Richie adored his messily scrawled words. He learned letters and words quickly and used all his time to read and write and theorize. He especially liked to theorize about his soulmate. 

What was alright?

Were they consoling him?

How did they know his name?   
Had he already introduced himself by then?

Maybe they were pen pals who had never met in person before. 

He talked to Seth, but his big brother (who wasn’t really bigger than him at all) was never interested. 

Richie assumed it was because Seth didn’t have his words yet. 

Richie found him one day after their old man had beat his head in. Seth was staring blankly at his open palm, the setting sun bathing him in it’s dying light. 

“They’ll come.” Richie told him as he dropped to dead grass beside his brother. Richie reclined against the peeling siding of their home and watched his brother as he turned to face him.

“What’s that?” Seth asked. His eyes were wide and confused, like he hadn’t even noticed Richie approaching him. Richie noted the swelling around his left eye and the cut on his lip, but fought the rising frustration in his chest. 

His big brother was so strong, but he made himself so weak in front of their father, and Richie could never understand why.

Instead of following his darker train of thought, Richie clarified his statement. “Your words. They’ll come. There’s going to be someone out there who’s right for you.”

Seth frowned at him and Richie knew he was thinking about their mother. Their parents had been soulmates, but she still left. She abandoned her soulmate and her children alike. 

“Who needs ‘em.” Seth shrugged. 

He was getting older, almost ten now, and he still didn’t have any words. It was possible his soulmate had died before he had even been born, or that he was just one of those unlucky bastards who never got to have their soulmate’s words staining their skin. 

Seth liked to think it didn’t bother him, even if it really, really did. 

After all, even if he did have words and a soulmate, they would probably just leave him the way his mother had. 

Richie slumped into Seth’s shoulder and the two sat there in silence as the sun dipped below the horizon, and they listened to their father start yelling from inside the house.

Richie tried to focus on the rising sound of crickets instead. 

Seth let the angry, drunken shouts sink through his skin and into his bones, where they made a home for themselves.

Seth thought about all the good things he didn’t deserve, and Richie thought about all the horrible things their father deserved. 

***

Kate had been born with her words stamped across her wrist in short, cramped block letters.

"Come on in, Princess"

She showed her best friend, Jessica, and the other girl had gushed about how her soulmate was going to call her sweet things like Princess and Buttercup. Little Kate let her mind conjure up fantasies of perfect gentlemen and knights in shining armor. Her soulmate was going to be handsome and kind, her very own prince charming. 

Her Mama would smile fondly at her musings and reassure her. Yes, of course, God would give such a faithful and devout girl like her the most wonderful of soulmates. He’d send her an angel to shield and protect her. 

When Scott joined the family Kate had almost immediately asked to see his words. 

He said no. 

It had not been a very good start to their relationship. 

She’d decided that if she couldn’t see his, then he would not see hers. It was petty and childish, but what else could be expected. They were children.

Kate covered her wrist and her words with a leather cuff her Daddy had bought her, just like any proper girl ought to until their words were spoken. Scott, with his words printed on the jut of his hip, just had to be careful not to lift his shirt up and flash his words to the world. 

They both knew Jennifer’s and Jacob’s words, though. Jacob had Jennifer’s neatly printed handwriting along his collarbone, ‘Excuse me, but could you tell me which way to the courthouse?’ 

Jennifer had Jacob’s messy scrawl along the underside of her arm, ‘Well, gee, I wish I could.’

It had been their first meeting, with Jennifer on her way to jury duty of all things. Jacob had been buying flowers for his mother when she’d stopped him to ask for directions, and the rest was history. 

Kate loved hearing her parents tell that story, loved the way it never failed to make her mother light up. She loved thinking that someday she would tell the story of how she met her soulmate to her own children. 

She loved her words dearly and couldn’t wait for the day she would hear them said aloud.

She was sure it would be the best day of her life.

She was wrong. 

***

Seth was fifteen when he woke up with a burning pain in his chest. For a fleeting moment he was convinced he was having a heart attack.

His face twisted as he clutched at his heart through his loose tee, silent screams tearing their way up his throat. 

He did his best to swallow them, not wanting to wake Uncle Eddie or his brother. 

After minutes of burning pain the sensation ebbed away and left him shaking there in his bed. 

Seth sat up- too fast judging by his spotted vision (or maybe that was just from the pain). Either way, he didn’t wait for his vision to clear or his breathing to even out before he was ripping his sheets away and stumbling, half delirious, to the bathroom down the hall. He stubbed his toe and knocked over a shit ton of building plans for an upcoming job of Eddie’s. 

Once he reached the bathroom and smacked randomly at the wall until the lights came on in the small space. Seth blinked his eyes against the light and tried to look at his reflection. To his dismay, he had to wait for his eyes to adjust. His mirror image came into focus slowly. 

He put his hands on his cheeks, turned his head, spent several long minutes examining his face and eyes until he was convinced he was awake and not about to keel over. 

The pain that gripped him such a short time ago was gone, only the memory of it and his own breathlessness remaining as proof.

Seth splashed cold water on his face and stepped away from the mirror. The hum of Eddie’s dingy fluorescent lights and the dripping faucet were the only sounds in the whole house. 

Seth’s hands wandered to his chest to rest limply over his heart. The memory of the burning pain flashed through his mind and the next moment he was pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it to the tiled floor. 

Oh. 

Oh.

Words. He had words. 

Seth had long given up on words and soulmates and any kind of happiness beyond what could be found with his brother. 

His index and middle fingers gently hovered over the slanted, looping script, as if he were afraid he might rub them away. 

"He scared me."

Who scared them? Who was his soulmate afraid of- going to be afraid of. God, words were so fucked up. He supposed he ought to be grateful that it didn’t say ‘you scare me’. He didn’t want them to be scared of him. He wouldn’t let anyone scare them. He’d make sure they were safe, even if that meant he had to protect them from himself.

Fuck, and they were a baby. His soulmate was a newborn baby in someone’s arms. At least he hoped so. He hoped they had a mom who wasn’t gonna walk out and a dad who would never hurt them. He hoped they were loved so fucking much. 

We can’t both be broken. Please, let them be happy.

Seth pressed his palm over his heart. It was still beating hard like a drum in his chest, but for very different reasons now than when he’d woken up. He nervously pulled his hand away from his chest.

A sigh of relief slipped past his lips when the words were still there. Then he started laughing. He kept laughing until Richie came in to see what was happening, asking questions and grasping at his shoulders. 

“This poor fucking kid has me as a soulmate.” He laughed.

Richie’s eyes widened before dropping to Seth’s body, immediately zeroing in on the neat cursive on his chest.

“Seth-” He started, elation beginning to seep into him for his brother. It had taken so long, but he had words. He had someone.

“This poor fucking kid.” Seth’s voice cracked, and he dropped his head into the crook of his little brother’s neck. “This poor fucking kid.” 

Choked sobs came up between laughs and Richie’s shoulders slumped as he realized that maybe this all came too late. Hope was just a cruel joke to Seth now, so Richie wrapped an arm around his brother and let the two of them sink to the ground. 

They never talked about Seth’s words again.


	2. The Chaos Before the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate wishes to be anywhere but where she is while Seth finds an unhappy surprise.

Kate stared at her father’s blank collarbone and empty ring finger in brooding contempt. She hated it. 

His words were gone, just like their mother, and his wedding ring sold to pay for this monstrous behemoth of an RV. She hated it. She hated him. She sighed and stood up to walk to the back of the RV where Scott was playing on his old gameboy. 

Kate wasn’t very good at hating things, but she was so angry. She wanted to hate, but then she’d look at her father’s pleading, wet eyes and it would just blow out of her in a great gust. Then she had to try and build it up again. She deserved to be angry. She was determined to hold someone accountable. It had to be someone’s fault.

It wasn’t fair. 

She wanted to be home, planning her senior prom and applying to colleges, not in a giant metal deathtrap speeding down the highway with her father’s guilty eyes and her brother’s distant behaviour. 

She buried her face in a pillow and let her mind wander. She hoped it would take her anywhere but here. 

***

Seth scrubbed his hands over his face. This already felt like such a long day, and it was barely past noon. Vanessa's accusations bounced idly in his head. 

Besides she should have been happy with the bonds. Their marriage had been miserable. She was getting the best out of this deal by far. He was going to take his brother and disappear. 

He couldn’t leave Richie. His brother needed him. Richie wasn’t well, he knew. Hearing things, seeing things. Seth never should have taken that last job without him. His brother had fallen apart while he was in jail, and he wasn’t sure how much of the man was left. 

They had to get moving again. The cops were way too close. That goddamned ranger was still on their tail like a fucking bloodhound. 

Fucking Richie and his trigger finger. 

Now he had a broken windshield to match his broken brother. He really had the worst taste in women. 

The thought had him reaching for his words, but he caught the action and aborted halfway through. 

He pulled up to the cheesy little motel and reached for the food and drink he’d brought back for his brother. They’d eat, and then they’d hit the road. Everything was going to be fine. 

He just had to get Richie across the border. Then they’d be on their way to El Rey, to paradise. 

When he entered their little room he was actually feeling pretty good, despite the close call with Jessica and the cops and how tired he was.

That lasted up until he saw the empty space on the couch.

“Where’s the girl, Richie?” He asked, feeling exasperation dripping out of him already.

Since when was Richie such a fucking child? Somehow his little brother had always been the more level headed of the two of them, but now? Now, Seth didn’t even know if his brother had his head on straight at all. 

Richie pointed disinterestedly towards the closed door to the motel bedroom, and Seth sighed. 

He tossed down his own food despite the hungry protests of his stomach.

“The hell is she doing in there?”

He stalked over and tore the door open only for his anger to dissipate.

No, he wasn’t angry. 

Seth didn’t know what he was.

He took several steps forward, forcing himself to look, to take in the gouged holes where her eyes should have been and the insides spread out to her sides. She was placed so carefully in the center of the bed, like she was a piece of art or something sacred. 

Richie walked up behind him, and Seth grit his teeth at the sound of his brother chewing on his lunch.

“What is wrong with you?” 

He wasn’t angry.

“I worked it out. I can see now.” Richie told him calmly- like there wasn’t the mutilated corpse of a woman on their fucking bed. “I can see.”

Seth could fucking see, too. He just didn’t know what it was he was seeing. 

“Can you? Then what is this? Because this doesn’t look like anything that- that I’ve ever seen before, Richard.”

He could feel the shift in his brother’s disposition without even trying. 

“Don’t ‘Richard’ me.” He said crossly. 

Seth spun on his heel to slam Richie up against the door.

“I’m gonna do a lot worse if you don’t stop right now.” He shook him, fists twisted in Richie’s dress shirt as he tried to grasp what could be going through his head.

Richie was not violent. He was not a monster. This wasn’t who he was, who they were. 

“This is not who we are. This is not who you are.” He gripped Richie’s chin and slammed him backwards into the door again.

“Say it.”

“This isn’t me.” Richie said blankly. 

“Say it again.”

Richie pressed his lips into a line.

“Say it!” Seth shook him again. 

“It is me.”

Seth released his shoulders and reeled. 

His brother wasn’t a monster.

He took Richie’s face in his hands, gentle but firm. His tone turned from demanding to pleading. 

“Do you understand what I’ve been through to get us here?”

Richie nodded, guilt flashed in his eyes for the first time all day, and it was such a relief that Seth nearly cried. Instead he wrapped his brother in a hug. 

“It’s ok. It’s ok.” He patted his back and felt Richie return the embrace.

“This is all gonna be a memory when we get to El Rey.” He promised. 

Seth rubbed Richie’s back and pat the back of his head as he made nonsensical promises about their paradise on Earth. 

He knew it was more for his sake than Richie’s. 

They had to get the fuck out of here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay. Fullers and Geckos collide soon.  
This chapter is clearly a lot shorter than the first, but next is going to be the pool scene with Richie and Kate and Seth meeting the Fullers (save Kate). So that should be a blast. I'm foregoing a whole bunch of stuff that you can just assume is more or less the same as canon.  
Seth is just made up of angst and exhaustion. Kate wants to be angry but isn't good at holding grudges. These poor babies. 
> 
> Obviously Kisa is in Richie's head already, but I figured psychic links don't count as first words, so his words haven't been spoken yet. 
> 
> Thank you for commenting! It gives me life!


	3. The Dewdrop Inn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth and Kate meet the same unfriendly clerk.

Kate frowned out at the sign. The Dewdrop Inn. It didn’t look very luxurious, but there was a pool and according to Yelp it was actually almost decent. Most importantly they were already here. Kate couldn’t stand another moment in the RV with her father laying there in a drunken stupor or her brother pretending everything about this trip wasn’t a total nightmare. 

She pulled up outside the front entrance and hopped out of the RV, basking briefly in the feel of solid ground under her feet again. She never wanted to get back in the deathtrap.

The lobby was as welcoming as the sign out by the road, which was to say, not very. 

There was a tin layer of dust settled over most of the furniture, though the counter had been wiped clean. Not that dusting the wooden countertop did anything to hide the water damage or the chipped sides. 

She twisted around, leaned over the counter, eyes searching for someone. This place couldn’t be run by ghost no matter how much it might look like it. 

“Hello?” She called. She leaned over the counter with a sigh. Just as she started debating whether or not she’d have to move on to the next motel whether she wanted to or not, an old man’ voice came yelling from a back room behind the counter. 

“Hold your goddamn horses!” 

Kate straightened and put on her friendliest smile as he threw open the door and stepped out.

He was indeed as old as his voice sounded, with a bald spot in the center of his short white hair, more than a few missing teeth, and the sort of wrinkles that spoke of years of working under the sun’s harsh light. 

He scowled at her, but Kate thought it must have been less to do with her and more to do with him. He looked like the kind of person that hadn’t smiled in the last decade. 

“I need a room with two beds, please.” She said, ever mindful of her tone and demeanor. 

He kept frowning, but tossed her a clipboard and a set of keys anyway. 

She supposed that was enough. She filled out the form, ignoring the small print that said one had to be over twenty one to book a room. He wasn’t carding her, and she figured he probably didn’t much care how old she was as long as she had money. 

Once they were booked in and her father’s credit card had been swiped, Kate took the keys back out to the RV. 

“Dibs on the bed.” Scott greeted. 

“No way. I’m not sharing a bed with Dad. I’m way too old for that.” She was seventeen already. Not a little girl. 

She knew Scott wasn’t a little kid, either, but he was younger than she was, and less angry at their father, too. Kate didn’t think she’d be able to sleep anywhere near him, not with her doubts about their mother’s death buzzing around in her mind like flies around a corpse. 

She pulled away only to step on the brakes when someone stepped in front of the RV.

The man only seemed to notice the vehicle had nearly hit him once he was already halfsy in front of it. He peered up at her through the windshield, and Kate took in the bottle in his hand. 

Her stomach churned. 

She really didn’t want to deal with any other drunks than her father today. She fixed the stranger with a withering look and hoped he’d move. He shuffled, not moving from his spot in her path as his gaze swept over the vehicle before returning to her.

There was an odd pang in her chest, something almost like recognition, but before Kate could ponder it her father spoke. 

“What in the world?” He raised his head off the pillow to look her way.

“It’s just some weirdo.”

A handsome weirdo, but more importantly a drunk weirdo. Why wasn’t he moving?

He took a swig from his bottle and waved her forward as he finally stepped out of the way. 

“What’s his problem?” Asked Scott.

Kate shrugged.

“Who cares?”

They found their room up on the second floor.

Kate quickly claimed the bathroom. She wanted to take a dip in the pool, to bask in being outside, away from all her stresses. She tried to will herself not to linger on the way her father had tossed Scott into the wall outside their room. 

Scott was mouthy. That was nothing new, but their father had never touched them before. 

She reassured herself that it wasn’t like he’d hit Scott or anything, but the interaction refused to settle in her mind. Instead it burrowed into her belly to sit like an uncomfortable weight. 

He was just drunk. He would take a nap and they’d all cool off, then everything would be normal again.

Kate wasn’t sure they knew how to do normal anymore.

“Katey-Kakes?” Her father rapped on the door as he spoke. 

She frowned at the mirror, at her reflection. This wasn’t her. 

She didn’t know who that was staring back at her, but it wasn’t the Kate Fuller she was supposed to be.

“Open the door, Kate. Now.” She pulled the door open halfway, and held her shirt in front of her like a shield. 

Her father dropped his gaze when she looked at him, pulled off his hat and tried to smooth his messy gray hair. 

“I’m sorry about the drinking.” He paused, searching for words. “I was just taking the foot off the gas so to speak. It won’t happen again.”

Disappointing words, apparently. 

Kate nodded her head even though he wasn’t really looking at her. 

“Good. Are we done?” Her voice was quiet, barely more than a whisper. She didn’t trust herself not to scream if she let herself speak louder. 

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” His eyes found hers, his own apology spurring him on. 

Too bad. Just because he’d decided to make this honesty hour didn’t mean she had to play along. 

“Nothing’s going on.”

“You really want to turn this whole ship around?”

“Yes, I do.” The thought of going home, back to Bethel, had her feeling better already. She wanted to go back. She wanted to be the Kate Fuller she was supposed to be.

“Why?”

Kate pursed her lips and now it was her turn to drop her gaze from her father’s searching eyes. She thought about the accident, about him shoving Scott before, about him nearly running her over in his haze earlier that day.

“I don’t feel safe with you anymore. I don’t feel like I can trust you. You aren’t acting like yourself.”

The guilt that fell over his face broke her heart.

“Katie, I’m really sorry. Really, I am. I-I think that maybe in time, you’ll look back on this trip and realize how important it was regardless of your opinion of me.”

Sorry wasn’t good enough. Sorry wouldn’t bring their mom back. Sorry didn’t get them back where they belonged. Kate was overwhelmed by the feeling of wrongness in her bones.

She shouldn’t be here. 

He kept speaking, kept apologizing, and Kate fought to keep tears from her eyes. 

She just closed the door. 

When she finished changing she left the room without looking at her family. 

***

Seth waltzed into the lobby casually, tapping the little bell on the desk once.

Within a moment a wizened old man was walking out from a door behind the counter. 

“Hey, old timer. Where’s a good place to eat around here?”

“What do I look like? The damn Chamber of Commerce?” He scoffed. 

Seth cocked his head, eyebrows raising, and took a breath. This was just going to be one of those days. Nothing could ever be easy. 

“Look I’m just trying to find somewhere to eat.”

“I don’t care where you eat, so long as you don’t eat in that room. If I smell food coming from that room-” The old man prattled on and on.

Seth didn’t even bother trying to hide what he was doing. He grabbed the check-in book and found a name and room number easily as the old man busied himself with his tirade. 

“You know what? Just forget it. Nevermind.” He walked out of the lobby, Richie at his heel. 

“Room 207.” Seth said.

They climbed the steps up and found the room quickly. 

“You knock.” Seth nodded to the door.

“Why do I have to?” 

“You’re non menacing.” Seth snapped. “Just knock on the fucking door.” Really it was because Seth didn’t trust Richie not to knock out whoever answered when they pushed their way in. 

Richie was smart and strong, but he was being far too unpredictable today. They didn’t have time to deal with unconscious hostages.

When the door opened it was to the face of an older man with drooping eyes and a slump of defeat in his shoulders. 

Seth didn’t recognize him from the RV, but he supposed the two kids he’d seen would probably have an adult with them. Hopefully just one adult. 

Richie talked and when the moment came Seth punched the man straight in the nose.

He went flying backwards onto the bed and Seth and Richie crowded through the doorway in the next instant. 

Richie found the Aisian kid and trained his gun on him, while Seth watch the man’s still form splayed on the bed. 

“Man said shut your mouth.”

They settled the old man and the kid onto the bed. Seth tossed a towel to the man, who immediately dabbed it at his bleeding nose.

Richie went to get their bag while Seth watched the pair. 

There was a jittery tense energy about the kid. It was the sort of feeling he got from people who usually wound up pulling stupid stunts. Hopefully the old man would keep him in check. 

“What with the Aisian kid? Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF?”

The pair exchanged a look, caught somewhere between exasperation and fear. He could figure it was a question they heard rather often, though in perhaps more elegant words. 

“He’s my son.”

“Really?” He shrugged. “Well, where’s mom?” The girl he’d seen before, the one behind the wheel, hadn’t looked anywhere near old enough to be Mother Dearest. 

“It’s just me and the boy.”

Well that was a bold-faced lie. 

“Well, what about that girl? The one driving.” He shuffled, shifting onto the balls of his feet and forward again. 

The man’s eyes feel down to the ugly motel carpet.

“Seth?”

He turned to see Richie standing in the center of the bathroom, holding up a frilly striped bra.

It was mostly comical just because it looked so small in front of Richie’s towering form, and he was holding it as if he was thinking about putting it on.

A memory of when they were sixteen and Richie had broken into Annie Hosker’s house and stolen half her underwear flashed through his mind. It had been on a dare, but afterwards Eddie had found them with a bunch of girl’s underwear and there had been a very long, very graphic talk that followed. 

Seth pushed the memory away, but he couldn’t help but echo what Eddie had said to them back then. “You two like playing dress up?”

“No, we do not.” He confessed.

“Where is she?” Seth let the threat drip from his voice. He did not have time for this sort of fucking around. He needed to get Richie out of here before anyone found the bank teller’s body. 

“She went on a grocery run for the RV. Won’t be back for hours.”

Seth twitched. It wasn’t the answer he’d been hoping for. 

“He’s lying.” Richie announced, casually dropping the bra to the ground and continued poking around, presumably in the girl’s things. 

“Call her.” Seth ordered, wiggling his gun in his captive’s face. 

The call was rejected. “She’s not answering.” He told him nervously. 

“She put this on before she left.” Richie held up a bottle of sunscreen, glancing to the old man with a smug upturn of his lips. 

“She’s probably at the pool. I’ll go get her.” Seth took a step towards the door before the image of the body downstairs burst into his mind. 

Red. Red eyes, red hands, red blood, red lips, red sheets. Red, red, red, red, red. 

No. 

He couldn’t leave Richie with anymore hostages. They did not need to leave any more bodies in their wake than they already had. 

“Actually, why don’t you go get her, Richie? You’ve spent enough time in hotels today.” 

As Richie walked past him he grasped his brother’s shoulder firmly. “Now you just find her, and bring her back here. Okay? Don’t talk to her. Don’t touch her. Let’s get on the clock. Ten on the Timex.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this under control.” Richie told him with a smile that did not make Seth feel better at all. 

Seth swallowed, watched his brother leave, and tried not to worry about what was going to follow.

He failed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW I promised Richie and Kate content in this chapter, but I forgot all this stuff happened, too. So, next chapter. It'll be good. Richie's going to be his wonderful manic self.
> 
> Comments fuel Creation! Let me know what you think!


	4. Poolside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate frets and Richie indulges in a new puzzle.

Kate laid back next to the pool, felt the sun’s heat soak into her skin. She couldn’t shake the tension from her muscles or the grimy feeling all over her skin that she knew had nothing at all to do with the dirty pool chair. 

How had this happened? When did this become her life?

It wasn’t fair. 

She replayed the details of the accident report in her mind.

Her father wasn’t a bad man. 

He loved her mother. They had been happy. They were soulmates. 

What had gone wrong?

Kate thought back to that night she’d seen her father pray over her mother’s body.

She replayed her mother’s stillness during the prayer and the way she shrunk and curled in on herself the moment Jacob stood from her bedside. 

A migraine? Maybe.

Her father wasn’t a liar. At least she didn’t want to believe he was. 

Her head hurt. 

He wasn’t being honest, not completely at least.

Kate stood from the sun bleached plastic chair and dove into the pool. 

The water was cool and refreshing as it swallowed her up. Kate pretended that the water could wash away all of her problems as she closed her eyes and floated in the center. It was such a beautiful day. Maybe if she stayed there long enough all of her troubles would just give way.

She would go back upstairs and her father would tell her everything, and it would all be perfectly reasonable. She would say she was sorry for doubting him and they would turn around and go home to Bethel.

When she opened her eyes she knew none of that would happen.

She would have to drag the truth out of him, and she resolved to do just that.

Her skin prickled, goosebumps spreading over her arms and legs.

“You, ok?”

Kate dropped back to tread water as she glanced over to the source of the voice.

There was a man at the edge of the pool watching her.

“I’m fine.” She swam to the ladder to climb out and fought the shudder as he continued to watch her. 

He was tall, clean shaven, and handsome. He wore a crisp black suit with a white dress shirt underneath and his hair slicked back. Somehow, she thought the horn rimmed glasses looked out of place on his face, like they didn’t belong there.

The man was squinting at her through the sunlight and the dancing reflections on the water, looking far too intense for their casual setting. It wasn’t sexual, exactly, but more like he might eat her whole.

Kate was careful not to shy away from his gaze. 

There was an energy around him that excited and bewildered her, but she knew better than to be obvious about how out of her depth she was. 

Instead she schooled her face into one of nonchalance and asked for a cigarette.

“Didn’t your daddy ever tell you not to do this?” He asked, letting the girl bum a cigarette all the same. 

Richie could feel a pull to her, there was something there. Something important.

Not the pain seeping out of her like blood, but something else. 

Something more. 

His eyes flicked casually to the band at her wrist, but no. She had not spoken his words. 

“Do what?” She asked him, sounding just the slightest bit indignant. He might have struck a sore spot- Daddy dearest? She had seemingly been ignoring his calls when they were upstairs.

“Talk to strangers.”

Richie offered a light as she answered him. “My daddy says a lot of things.”

And- yes, definitely daddy issues. He wondered if the cigarette was her own form of minor rebellion against him. 

Richie fought to remain casual and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was with her.

“You on vacation or something?”

“Sorta.”

She grabs her towel to wrap around herself and sat down as they chatted.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He pushed.

“ You ever feel like your life is turning upside down, like a ship in the ocean?”

There’s that pain again, so familiar, like it’s on the tip of his tongue. He can almost taste it. What is it?

“You have no idea.” Richie settled into a chair beside her. Who was she? It was driving him up the wall. He could see so clearly now, but he was missing something about her. He had to chase it, that something, that something important and familiar. He needed to catch it, to know it, understand it. 

They sit and talk, and she was at once smart and kind, but bitter. Soft insides beyond broken, sharp edges. 

She made a jab at his flirting and Richie filed away the fact that she is underage. He wondered if she was an older sister or a younger sister. 

When had the brother come into the picture? Had she been an only child once upon a time? Had she preferred it?

Richie couldn’t fathom such a thing. He had always had Seth, always been a brother, a part of a matching set. 

Always together, right up until they weren’t. And, oh, how lost he had been. 

No longer. He had Seth now, and he could see now, and no pretty little girl with sharp edges could change that. 

Her phone rang, a generic tone, probably the default, Richie guessed.

That summed her up rather well. 

Default. 

Pretty, but plain. A sister by default, with typical Daddy issues, and the same tried and true outlets of rebellion. She was acting out by sitting here, flirting with him and smoking without inhaling, but not in any meaningful way. Small rebellions to keep her sane, but still playing it safe. Always safe, never too close to the edge.

Richie wanted to show her the edge, push her to the precipice, watch her face as she realizes that there’s no turning back. He wants to watch her crack open, to see what type of monster crawls out of her shell.

“It’s my Dad.I don’t want to talk to him. Not right now, at least.” She said, at once a confession and a denial, but of what Richie isn’t sure.

“You have a problem with him?”

She hadn’t bothered to push the wet hair from her face, and Richie could feel his hands itching to tuck it away behind her ear. 

The need to claw her open and know her secrets gnawed at him from the inside out. 

“It’s something more, deeper than that.” He needed to stop pushing, stop digging. “Something that really hurts.”

Her eyes overwhelmed him when they met his and he broke contact.

“I saw you floating in the pool… it was like you were bleeding, hurting inside.” His own confession of something he can’t deny.

“I really think you should talk to him. It’ll make you feel better.”

She doesn’t pick up the phone to talk to her father, and Richie can feel his brother's anxiety bubbling under his own skin. This was taking too long.

“You some kind of travelling preacher, or something?”

And there, there was that vulnerability, that ache in her soul that he couldn’t see before. Richie denied himself the urge to dig in, to latch onto whatever it was, that wound, and rip it out of her. 

“Not exactly, but I like to think I see truth. I see a lot of things.”

But still not enough.

“Like what?” 

“I see a girl hiding from her father.”

Guilt flashed across her face, just for a moment before she turned from him. Tucking her wound back in safely behind her jagged edges.

“Somethin’... “ She trailed off, bit her lip, and squeezed her eyes shut, searching for the irght words in the darkness behind her eyelids.

“Somethin’ happened to me and my family. He keeps lying to me about it, and I don’t know how to talk to him anymore.”

She shook her head and smiled, eyes too bright as she looked at him. Something almost like fondness spreading across her face. 

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to talk to strangers.” Richie dismissed. 

“My name is Kate.” She told him, holding out her hand. 

“Oh- see now you’ve gone and ruined the whole thing.” He joked, the smile on his face felt more genuine than it should have. 

She laughed, and he grasped her hand.

“Richard.”

The contact brought with it a pulse of doubt, fear, distrust, and betrayal. 

A mother, dead.

A brother, so close and so far away.

A father. A liar. Maybe something worse.

“You think he killed her?”

Fear. Richie still held onto her hand, grip firm.

Kate backpedaled even as her pulse quickened under his fingers. Her mind struggled to catch up to what her body already knew.

She was a deer caught in a hunter’s trap.

“Were they really migraines?”

“Oh, my God.” She wrenched her hand free from him, and Richie spared no time to mourn the broken connection. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean-” He reached for her, eager to reestablish the connection, so vivid. He hadn’t seen it- that elusive quality inside her, that something that made her so very special. 

Something bright and familiar, painful, but pivotal. It was important. 

She moved away, out of reach, coy flirtations and small confessions replaces with a burning fury as she spits venom at him. 

“I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, you creep, but stay away from me.”

Richie watched remorsefully as she fled from him.

He stood to follow her a moment after, grateful that they’d have the whole drive to Mexico to continue getting to know each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richie is SO creepy in this scene, I remember wondering why Kate didn't seem more creeped out when I first saw this episode.  
That said, I really enjoyed writing Richie's POV He's so manic and as someone who is a little bipolar myself it so nice to just go all in on this crazy bullet train of a brain. I imagine he was exhibiting a lot of self restraint with Kate, all things considered. 
> 
> The soulmate meeting is quickly approaching! Yaayy!
> 
> Comments are my sustenance!


	5. Stir Crazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth is getting more anxious by the second as he waits for Richie, and the old man is not helping.

Seth was losing his goddamn mind. How long did it take to fetch a kid? 

A knock at the door followed by the call of, “Housekeeping.” nearly sent him into heart palpitations.

Stupid Richie with his stupid trigger finger and more stupid proclivity for murder.

Seth should really be more worried about that last one, but well, he’ll worry about that when he no longer has to worry about the vengeful ranger, the whole of law enforcement looking for them, the dead body downstairs, or - oh, yeah- the two hostages he’s stuck babysitting while Richie is who-knows-where doing who-knows-what.

Jesus, he needed a drink.

Once the housekeeper was on her way, the old man decided it was time to test the water. 

“The infamous Gecko Brothers.” He rose up from the bed, eyes hard and body deceptively relaxed.

“I didn’t say you could get up.”

He was so tired, and nothing today was going to be easy it seemed. 

“I heard about you on the radio. Switched that channel so it wouldn’t scare my kids.”

Seriously? The boy looked like he was probably seventeen, and the girl had been driving so she had to be at least sixteen, probably older. 

If they were going to get scared by listening to a news report, then either teenagers were a lot tougher when Seth was one, or these kids were way too sheltered. 

“You did the right thing. Now sit.” Seth doesn't bother to hide the irritation in his voice; it usually helps freak people out if they think that the person with the gun is ticked off.

Much to his dismay, the old-timer keeps talking. “Radio said you robbed a bank up in Abilene. You’re moving South, which means you’re going to Mexico. That’s what you need us for, ain’t it?”

“Brilliant deduction, really.” Seth mocks. “You ever do any acting?”

Pops is expectedly thrown off by the sudden change of topic, and Seth engages a bit, hams it up for his audience of two before arriving at his point.

His point being a gun at the old man. 

The threats come easily, they always have. Seth has a habit of rambling when he’s stressed, not that anyone but Eddie and Richie would know it. People don’t get that close, and he doesn’t want them to. 

It was easy to make people think he held all the cards, all the power, words and a little show of force could go a long way. Seth has known that since he was a child, the lesson beat into his brain early on, and it’s served him well in his life. If people thought he had all the power, that he did. It was an illusion, but a masterfully crafted one that Seth had spent his whole life perfecting. 

“I won’t let you take my children.” The man says softly. It’s a statement, but Seth recognizes it for what it is- a plea. Leave his children out of this.

Seth’s not in a giving mood, and despite how much this man thinks Seth has it all figured out the truth is that everything is spinning wildly out of his control and has been since the heist, maybe even before that. Seth couldn’t spare the kids anymore than he could leave Richie.

“Well, it’s not gonna work with one creepy old dude, so guess what- the whole clan gets to come along. Sit Down.”

Still, the old man stays on his feet, and Seth can feel his patience wearing thin. 

“You told him not to touch my daughter.” It sounds like an accusation. In a way, it is. 

Seth tries to focus on the view outside the window, wills Richie and the girl to appear, so that he can escape the line of questioning.

“Why did you tell him not to touch my daughter?”

“Your daughter’s gonna be fine.” 

It tastes like a lie. Seth hopes it’s not. 

“He harms her… I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

Seth doesn’t dwell on the resolve in the man’s watery blue eyes, instead he points his gun at the kid, still sitting tense and jittery on the bed. “You’re gonna kill him with your big mouth first.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Scott.”

All Seth can think is that it’s a very plain American name. He’s not sure what he was expecting. 

“Scott? Do me a favor. Tell your dad to sit down and shut up.”

Scott does as he’s told, quaking under the barrel of Seth’s gun. Seth notes that he omitted telling his father to shut up, but it does the trick all the same. 

“Gettin’ better already.” He sighs and returns to his window side roost. 

They try calling the girl again, but just like before, she doesn’t answer. 

Seth wants to scream. 

This day couldn’t possibly get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok- this is short, but I'm uploading it the same day as the last chapter, so that makes it okay? Right? I didn't really need to write this scene, but I wanted to, so here you go.  
Seth is just a messy pile of stress and brotherly love, and the whole situation being so out of his control is his worst nightmare. 
> 
> He has bullshitted his way this far in life, and he will bullshit his way into the grave. 
> 
> COMMENT please!


	6. Come on in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions are made, and some very important words are spoken. Kate responds... not well.

Jacob sat with his back straight as he pondered over their most recent tragedy. 

His children had suffered enough, losing their mother, and now God brought terrible men to their door to do terrible things. 

The man- Seth, he thought, since he’d called the one with the glasses Richie- had migrated to the other side of the window, an anxious energy falling off of his shoulders in waves. 

“It’s judgement.” Jacob decided.

“What’s that?” Seth barely glances over his shoulder at him, and Jacob wondered if he saw them as threats. It didn’t feel like it. 

“You’re judgement.” Jacob reiterated. Divine punishment for his sins. “You’re here to bring His judgement down on me.”

Seth didn’t seem to appreciate the sentiment. “This isn’t in the script, old man.” 

“My children have paid the price for my actions.” They had already lost their mother. Jacob needed to be punished, but his children were innocents. “I’m the one that deserves this, not them. I’ll come with you willingly. Please, don’t make them suffer for what I’ve done.”

Seth felt lightheaded. Was this real? Maybe the whole day had been an insane dream- Hell maybe he was having a wicked trip and he was still in Jail. Yeah, maybe he just fudged the dose and took a bad hit.

Seth stood for a beat, figured he didn’t have the imagination to pull off a dream like this- drug induced or not- and decided this was real.

The old man was having a crisis of faith on him. 

“Don’t go getting soft on me, old man.” Seth gestured broadly to the world beyond the rundown little motel room. “We still have a performance to put on. Keep the energy up.” 

The man quieted, but the distraught expression on his face remained. Seth wandered back to the door. 

He really did not have the time or energy for complications. 

A key turned in the lock and the door opened, and ah, the lady of the hour.

“Come on in, Princess.” He pulled the door the rest of the way open and stepped aside to let her in.

There was a moment, just a second, where her eyes widened, and her face seemed caught between confusion and joy, her mouth opening to say something before her father yelled out. 

“Kate, run!”

And immediately whatever spell had fallen over Seth upon seeing her was broken, and her face clicked into a look of appropriate fear as she registered the situation, spinning on her heel only to crash into Richie’s chest.

“Was it something I said?” Richie asked, crowding her through the doorway until Seth was able to close the door behind them. 

The girl backed away until the backs of her knees hit the bed, and she dropped to join her father and brother. She clapped both her hands over her mouth, eyes wide with fear, and? Something else. 

Richie could tell something had changed, just then, but what? There was an energy hanging in the air, like static electricity. It niggled at him the way an unfinished song would. 

So much energy with nowhere to go. Richie felt like if he lit a match it all might explode. He felt like he was suffocating on it. 

Jacob, for his part, had frozen in place. 

No. Not here. Not like this, not with him. Not his little girl. 

His eyes found hers quickly, and upon seeing the tears gathering in her eyes, Jacob felt his heart break.

How it was still beating after all this was beyond him. 

How could God be so cruel to his daughter? Had not raised her to be faithful and diligent? Wasn’t she good? Didn’t she deserve better than a criminal for a soulmate? 

Kate trembled on the bed, one hand stayed over her mouth while the other reached for her family.

Scott found it and gripped it hard. 

Kate was grateful. Scott was the only thing that felt real in that moment. Not the heat in her eyes or the bed under her body or even her father wet blue eyes as they locked with hers.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

If she didn’t speak then the bond wouldn’t be complete.

She whimpered against her palm. 

She wanted to wake up back in her bed in Bethel. She wanted to go downstairs and find her mother baking bread for Communion on Sunday. She wanted all of this, her mother, the funeral, the winnebago, Richard, and her soulmate with the gun in his hand to be a dream.

“Hey, go get dressed.” He said, gesturing toward the bathroom. 

Kate jolted up, suddenly very aware of her lack of clothing and her wet skin. She dressed methodically before shoving everything back into her bag. She hung her bikini over the shower rail to dry, as if she would still be here when it did. 

She wished she could dry her hair, but well, that seemed silly. She couldn’t ask the men with guns if they could wait for her to blow dry her hair. 

Kate bit her lip to keep the manic laughter from spilling out of her throat. 

This wasn’t real.

Her soulmate was pointing a gun at her family. She was his hostage. 

She hadn’t seen him. Not for more than that moment at the door when he said those words- her words. He had been tall, not as tall as Richard, but taller than her, and taller than her brother and father, too, she thought. Dark hair, dark suit to match Richard’s, and darkly tanned skin. She thought of his eyes and thought they must have been dark, too. 

He was probably handsome. 

Her hand rested over the cuff at her wrist. She didn’t need it anymore. 

She didn’t take it off. She needed to keep her mouth shut. If she didn’t speak, then the bond wouldn’t be complete, and he would never even know.

She hoped. 

Even with only one set of words spoken, Kate felt different though. Anticipatory.

She felt stretched, and open.

She felt like her soul had moved around to accommodate someone else. 

It was… uncomfortable.

She hoped it wouldn’t last. 

At the knock on the door, Kate abandoned her musings and steeled herself. When she opened the door she squeezed past him and clung to the doorframe so that she wouldn’t have to touch him. She ran eagerly back to her father and brother on the bed. 

She was afraid to look at her father’s eyes, afraid of the knowing she would find there.

He heard her words, too. He knew. 

She looked at her lap, and waited for whatever nightmare was sure to come next. 

Her father’s hand squeezed her shoulder, and Kate’s hand flew to hold it there and squeeze back.

This was real. 

“Okay ramblers, let’s get rambling.”

His voice was deep, but not excessively so, and even without looking at him she could see that he talked with his hands.

Kate focused on breathing. 

He laid out the plan; first her father, then Scott and Richie, then them. 

She swallowed thickly. Why did it have to be them?

The hand at her shoulder moved to rubbing firm circles into her back. 

She could do this. 

Her skin ached the closer he seemed to stand, and she prayed he didn’t notice.

Did he feel this, too? This restlessness, aching through her body in a way that Kate could only compare to hunger?

It was a yearning that went all the way down to her bones. A need for closeness, proximity, touch. 

She wanted to run away screaming. 

Glancing sideways she caught Scott’s eyes, and remembered that he didn’t know her words. He had no idea what was happening.

Unsure whether to feel distraught or grateful, Kate simply returned her gaze to her lap as her soulmate finished his speech. 

She didn’t even know his name. 

Did she want to know his name?

Jacob stood first, leaving Kate sitting on the bed, feeling like she was lost at sea with no tether. 

“If I’m going first, I wanna talk to my kids before I leave.”

The words were to the dark haired man- her soulmate- so that must mean he was the shot caller. 

“That’s a lovely sentiment. No Dice.” 

Kate rubbed her jeans, relished in the friction she could create, and pointedly didn’t listen to her father argue with the man.

Once her father turned back to her she saw Richie swoop in to commandeer the man’s attention. 

They seemed close. 

Richie and this man, this walking, talking person whose soul was tied to hers by the very laws of nature.

She wondered if that had anything to do with the implicit trust she’d felt down by the pool. Richie had obviously been dangerous, but she’d felt so at ease with him. Too at ease, apparently. 

Kate idly wished she had read more about soulmates and bonds when she was younger.

It just hadn’t felt important. When someone met their soulmate, they would say the words, and have their words spoken in turn. A bond would form, varying in strength and nature, and it would go stronger as the two spent time with and came to know each other. Then they lived happily ever after. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

This train wreck encounter that left Kate feeling unbalanced and like she was suffocating in the same moment that she felt whole and alive.

God had a plan for everyone and everything, but was this really hers? 

Her father reached out to touch her, to bring her back to the present and Kate reeled back, feeling like she’d been stung. 

Wrong.

“Sorry.” She said, eyes downcast. 

“I know you’re disgusted with me right now, I know this is more than you bargained for when we started on this road, but it is what it is.”

Kate felt guilt twist in her belly. She didn’t want her father to think he disgusted her. 

“What did you mean by all that judgement stuff?” Scott asked.

“It was nothing.” Jacob was quick to reassure, but Kate couldn’t ignore that.

“Wait. What judgement stuff?” She might not have been disgusted by her father, but she was very angry. Angry enough to speak despite the closeness of her soulmate.

“He was talking to one of them like this was supposed to happen, like he deserved it.” Scott said. Kate noted with satisfaction the anger in his voice. It was vindicating to know Scott was finally starting to get upset, too. 

Their father plowed ahead, oblivious to the storm brewing in her chest.

“Listen closely, when I’m not here, you do exactly as they say. Follow every instruction to the letter.” He looked at her imploringly. 

“Don’t speak unless spoken to, don’t question them.” Kate understood. Her father had phrased it so that Scott wouldn’t notice, but he wanted her to keep her mouth shut. 

She nodded, even as Scott argued.

“We’re gonna get through this together as a family.”

As if summoned by their father’s reassurances, her soulmate appeared and ordered Jacob out the door.

Kate settled into a chair by the window as Scott stood, bouncing on the heels of his feet. 

“Gettin’ close.” He commented, checking his watch. 

Kate followed the motion and caught his eye for a moment after he looked up.

She dropped her gaze back to her hands, folded neatly in her lap.

She was right. His eyes were dark, too. 

Richie tried to talk with Scott, with little to no success, and Kate wondered again if her ease with him had come from her bond with this other man. 

“Okay, boys. Showtime.” He moved to the door and opened it for them, Richie and Scott walking out and down the hall, away from her. 

Kate felt like she was drowning. 

She wasn’t sure if she was imagining things or if there really was as much tension in the room as she felt. 

She prayed for peace and quiet, for all of this to go off without a hitch, and for this man to walk out of her life forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV jumps around in the beginning because I say so. 
> 
> AND what!? Another chapter? In less than a month? It's more likely than you think.  
So Kate is feeling conflicted and upset and Seth is, as always, a ball of stress, more on him next chapter.  
Richie knows something is up, but can't figure out what. I'm definitely gonna play around with his third eye because I love psychic characters. I like the idea that he's working himself up in all kinds of ways over Kate, meanwhile the thing he's feeling is her bond with Seth. And to a lesser extent, all that purity jazz like in canon, but mostly her bond with Seth.
> 
> Comments feed me.


	7. He Scared Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate says her words, and she and Seth struggle to cope with the initial intensity of their bond under gunfire. Because of course people would be shooting at them when they're having a moment.

There was something wrong. Seth could feel it in the air, in his bones, all around him. 

Seth shook his head, willed the white noise in his ears to subside.

God, he hoped he wasn’t going deaf. Maybe he’d stood too close to one too many explosions. 

His eyes slid back to the girl, to his watch, the window, and back again. 

The stress was fine, normal even. Seth lived in a constant state of stress, and he did some of his best work in some of the absolute shittiest situations.

But something was wrong. He was missing something. 

The plan was going fine so far, and they’d be across the border by nightfall. The boy- Scott- was a powder keg, for sure, Seth recognized the pent up, jittery anger of a person who did dumb things at the worst times. 

The man was playing along, so long as neither of the kids got hurt.

The girl was- something.

Seth felt a little bit like his leg had fallen off. As if suddenly he was lacking something that was supposed to just be there, sure as the sun. He wasn’t forgetting anything- he wasn’t distracted.

The girl was still stubbornly finding her fingernails more interesting than him or even the gun in his hand. 

Ever since she’d walked in she’d been acting as if he didn’t exist. It was, to be honest, a bit irritating. 

Except before, right when she’d walked in, when she first saw him, Seth was so sure she’d smiled.

That didn’t make any sense though, so he dismissed it. And Richie- Richie had said something then, too. 

‘Was it something I said?’

Seth frowned. He told Richie not to pull anything, and his brother had clearly ignored his very reasonable request.

It felt like that was becoming a habit.

Seth should definitely hit him when they got down to the Winnebago.

Seth checked his watch again. “Okay, it’s time.” What a relief. He felt like he was going crazy in this damned room. 

Seth noted the way the girl flinched at his voice and the way she was now staring very intently at the vase on the table, hands fidgeting in her lap.

“Did my brother… did he do anything to you?” Seth doubted he’d like her answer, but felt the need to know. How lost was Richie to him?  
The girl froze, eyes wide, staring at him. At least she was actually looking at him now, even if it was like he’d grown a second head.

“Did he!?” Seth snapped, desperation clear in his tone. He’d hoped- maybe had actually let himself beleive that Richie hadn’t done anything too out of hand. The terror on her face said otherwise, and Seth felt distinctly uncomfortable. There was a wrongness inhis gut- screaming that he was missing something that was staring him in the face. 

His panic might have been what shocked her out of her stupor because finally, she answered him.

“He scared me.” 

Seth felt gutted. 

His shoulders dropped as he felt a gush of emotions- fear, guilt, hate, all from her. 

This dainty little girl.

His fucking soulmate.

Fuck.

“Oh.” He said.

“Yeah.” She agreed. Her eyes dropped from his face, shoulders drooping in what might have been relief. 

Seth dropped his gaze. He really didn’t have time for this sort of cosmic joke right now.

“Look at me.” And she did, eyes bright and green and Seth could not believe how shitty their joint luck was- or maybe this was all his own shit luck just drawing her into its orbit.

Seth forced himself to look into her eyes.

“You do what I tell you, when I tell you, and you’ll get out of this without any bumps or scrapes.”

She nodded along as he spoke. “Okay.”

Seth felt a sense of trust weave through his heartstrings, and fuck, if he was getting all of this from her, what the hell was she getting from him? 

Panic? Anxiety? Nothing comforting anyway. He nodded to her, because what else could he do? They didn’t have the luxury of time to talk about bonding or any of the normal things people were supposed to talk about when they met their soulmate. 

It would have to wait. Even after everything was said and done, Seth would probably be doing her a favor if he just checked out of her life once this whole fiasco was over.

She stood and moved next to him, ready and waiting. Seth did his best to the ignore urge to touch her face. It was decidedly not the time for any mushy soulmate stuff. 

Shit, he didn’t even know her name. Seth always knew he’d be a lousy soulmate, but this seemed a bit beyond even by his own expectations.

He’d met her less than an hour ago, kidnapped her family at gunpoint, sent his brother to creep on her, and was now about to hold all of them hostage to cross the border with all of Southern law enforcement on their back. 

‘Great first impression, Seth. Really outdid yourself this time.’

Seth refocused his attention. Compartmentalize. Get the job done.

Seth put his arm around her, hovering over her plaid shirt, but not touching. Bonds were tricky, and he wasn’t sure what might happen if he touched her. 

He thought, maybe that was just supposed to be skin on skin contact, but he wasn’t in the mood to test it either way. 

He was mindful of the space between them, how small she was next to him, and the smell of chlorine in her hair.

Fuck- how old was she? Seth had been fifteen when he got his words, though he didn’t remember exactly when. She had to be seventeen or eighteen, with him being thirty-two. 

Christ, he hoped she was eighteen. 

As if this timing could possibly be worse.

Seth opened the door, nudged her with the butt of the gun, which, really, was probably not his best idea. They walked out, Seth just a step behind her.

As she looked around, she froze, and immediately alarms began blaring in Seth’s mind in response to the clear feeling of shock coming from her. 

Kate’s eyes met those of a man on the walkway, her eyes catching the sunlight glinting off his badge, and she froze.

“Hey!”

His gun was up, and as Kate opened her mouth to say something- anything for him to put the gun down, she felt a strong arm wrap across her front and she was yanked backwards into a solid warmth.

Seth spun her away the ranger, showing his back against better judgement.

Her hands flew to brace against the arm around her and Seth felt his breath hitch as skin touched skin. 

If he’d thought he was getting a lot from her before, it was nothing next to this. Adrenaline that wasn’t his own and a desire to beg for mercy slammed into him like he’d been hit by a Semi-truck.

Seth dutifully pushed her impulses from her mind as best he could as the ranger got off a shot that narrowly missed his shoulder. Seth ducked back into the motel room, eager to get her out of the line of fire as two more officers rounded the corner on his other side. His heart pounded against his ribcage harder than it had since he’d been a kid hiding from his father. 

Or maybe that was her heart hammering in her chest harder than it had in probably her whole life.

Seth wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter.

Several more shots were exchanged outside as Seth pushed her behind him, her hands falling away and the overwhelming bombardment of her own feelings and thoughts fell away with them. 

It was like sensory overload, and Seth quickly made a mental note to not touch her again until they were far away from here and not in danger of being shot.

He felt short of breath, and her unease lingered in his chest. 

Was it supposed to be like that? 

The intensity had both of them shell-shocked even as Seth tried to recalibrate his brain to come up with a plan to get them out safely. 

The connected door to the next room burst open with a shot, and Richie drifted through the entrance. 

He didn’t even blink as Seth habitually trained the gun between his eyes before sighing and lowering his weapon a moment later.

“A little warning next time? ‘Hey, it’s me.’? Could go a long way to keep me from blowing your head off.”

Seth’s eyes flicked back to the girl as she tugged on his suit sleeve, anxious, but whether it was over the gunfight or Richie he wasn’t sure. 

“I moved the RV around back.” Richie stated proudly.

Of course he did.

Of fucking course he did. 

“You what?” Seth could feel his headache coming back.

“I told you we had to, but we’ve got to go now before Ranger Ricardo makes his way in.” Richie explained simply, and far too casually given their current level of screwed to Hell.

Before Seth could properly articulate how pissed he was at all of this ‘I do what I want because I can, fuck your plan’ that Richie had been throwing around today, three shots came through the opposite door.

Why their lovely ranger was practically giving them a warning and announcing his position rather obviously, Seth didn’t care too much. Don’t look at a gift horse and all that. 

He wrapped one hand around each of her forearms and directed them back out the door, grateful that her plaid shirt provided enough separation not to send both of them into a panic again. 

Richie was feeling rather good. He’d moved the RV around back, and that awful static tension had dissipated. 

Kate was still curious, still fascinating, but that mind numbing energy had settled. 

Richie felt very much at ease with that turn of events, like whatever energy had been seeping out of her before had found its place.

Kate herself felt different, startlingly familiar, more so than before, and new. Like she’d been remade. 

Richie wished he knew what had changed after he left the room, but he could find out later.

He followed Seth and Kate out the door, past the corpses of the men he’d shot just before, and down the walkway.

Things were looking up, he could feel it. 

Then the ranger popped out before they turned the corner and Seth hovered to exchange fire.

He caught a bullet in the arm for his trouble. Kate screamed as it struck him, and he stumbled backwards several steps. 

“Go! Now!” Seth demanded, and Richie didn’t argue. He grabbed Kate and, surprisingly, had to drag her away. After a moment of struggle he opted to just lift her up over his shoulder as she fought him, desperation sloughing off of her.

Richie marveled at how beautiful she looked with tears in her eyes, but didn’t linger on the observation long enough to ask himself why they were there at all.

He carried her down the steps to the RV as shots continued to ring out behind them.

Kate reeled as Richie carried her away, thrown by the sheer panic as her soulmate left her line of sight. Her arm ached where she knew he’d been shot, and she tried not to wonder how much pain he was in compared to the pain she could feel in her own arm.

The pain dulled as they moved further away from him, and as she stopped feeling what she could now clearly identify as his anxiety, Kate clung to the pain in her arm to tell her he was still alive. 

It was disorienting as Richie threw open the door to the Winnebego and deposited her into Scott’s waiting embrace. She couldn’t even remember the journey there, startling as Scott touched her. Her skin crawled at what should have been a comforting hand on her arm that pulled her in close.

It felt nothing like when her soulmate had pulled her flush to his chest.

Richie spoke to her father, and Kate tried to listen, to stay present and aware of what was happening around her, but couldn’t. Her mind returned to her soulmate, to the heat of his body and the image of him stumbling back as the bullet struck his arm.

She wriggled out of Scott’s arms and dropped her body into the seat at the table. She needed to sit and think while she still had a clear head. When he made it back she would likely be accosted by his own overwhelmed feelings, unable to separate her thoughts from his.

It had been…

Kate wasn’t sure.

It had left her breathless, and she felt unbearably alone suddenly. Her mind was quiet. 

She felt bereft, like she had at her mother’s funeral. As if she had lost something precious that was supposed to be there. 

No one had died, but the silence in her head left her unhinged and unsure.

His mind had been a whirlwind of complex machinations, half-formed thoughts abandoned unceremoniously in favor of new ones, plans and contingency plans, and Richie, Richie, Richie. 

And her. 

Kate had been dumbfounded by her own prevalence within his mind, how strongly she factored into his thought process and how many of his plans were being completely reworked to accommodate her inclusion. 

She hadn’t been able to hear his thoughts, but she had sensed them, felt them so intimately as though they belonged to her own mind.

They did not.

No. 

Nothing changed. He was a criminal who was holding her and her loved ones hostage, nevermind the heat sparking under her skin at the thought of touching him again, or how safe she had felt in his embrace even with people shooting at them. 

Kate wondered if her father knew that she had said the words. His words. 

She glanced over to him and saw him sitting in the driver’s seat, ooking beaten and worried.

She thought of how ashamed he might be to know her thoughts. She would never want her father or Scott or anyone at all in her head.

Yet it had felt natural to feel him there. Strange and alarming, certainly, but natural. Like two pieces clicking together the way they were made to. 

Kate was tempted to dwell more on the feeling and sensations that came with contact, but denied herself. 

He was a monster.

She wouldn’t care even if he did get shot dead.

Panic flooded through her body, and the next moment Kate was tugging her cuff away under the table to see her words.

‘Come on in, Princess.’ 

This was what his handwriting looked like, and Kate could hear him speak the words so clearly. His demeanor was casual, easy, and charming. It was a stark contrast to his mind which had felt overused and tired.

A sigh of relief fell from her lips as she traced the letters. If she still had her words, he was alive. The throbbing in her arm reminded her that he was hurt, and her mind went to the first aid kit in the cabinet. 

She chewed on her lower lip as she replaced the cuff, unsure if she should get the kit out for when he reached them. If he reached them. 

The pain in her arm- his pain- spiked suddenly as something landed heavily on the top of the RV. 

Thumping and grunts sounded before something- someone, Kate corrected- was pushed off to the side of the vehicle. 

A round of knocks on the rear window put Kate at ease, but only half as much as the low hum of his mind, quieter now than before. 

It was good to know that the intensity their bond had possessed at first was not going to keep up forever. She could feel him, feel him sifting through his thoughts in irritation, but it was manageable. Comfortable, even. Like a buzzing in the back of her mind.

Kate moved on autopilot to the first aid kit as he climbed into the interior of the RV.

Her father was driving them out onto the road.

She didn’t know where they were going, or how long he and Richie would hold her family hostage. She still didn’t know his name.

For now, at least, they were all stuck together, though. 

She opened the kit even as Richie forced Scott into a seat and started pulling out gauze, bandages, and some tweezers and disinfectant. 

This was going to be a very weird trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEW! I'm just churning this out. I'll be picking up immediately where I left off here in the next chapter, I just thought it was getting long, so I'm stopping here. The party has now LEFT the Dew Drop Inn. I'm gonna play around with all the interactions during the drive because obviously the dynamics are a little different this time around. Seth is probably going to do his Best to avoid interacting with Kate whatsoever, but he's also nosy as hell, so he is still gonna chat with Jacob.
> 
> Not sure what I'm going to do with the whole Scott pulls a gun Thing, but we'll see. 
> 
> If y'all have any questions or comments, leave em down below! I love hearing what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> I am absolutely binging FDTD and SethKate is SOO good. I can't help myself. Anyway this will just be some drabbles about a soulmate AU that's going to more or less follow canon for season 1 and diverge in season 2 (If I write season 2).


End file.
